Rural Texans Get the Short End of the Stick From GOP Elites
Rural Texas provides the margins of victory for the modern Texas GOP. But that doesn't mean GOP policies benefit rural Texans.
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February 28, 2025
Quote of the Day … "If you want the people to let you run the government like a circus, you have to deliver a few clowns."
— Nick Cataggio, in his Boiling Frogs blog
My friend David Marwitz — Marfawitz to readers of this blog — and I wrote an op-ed piece about how Texas’ rural voters provide the margins of victory for our statewide political leaders — the Cruzes and Abbotts and Patricks and Paxtons — but their policies at the state and federal level ignore the needs of rural Texas. It ran yesterday in the Big Bend Sentinel, and I am reprinting it here.
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” — H. L. Mencken.
Rural Texas is getting it good and hard from the governing elites in Austin and Washington. Whether it’s education, healthcare or agriculture policy, decision-makers at the state and federal levels are leaving rural Texans behind. Let’s consider how state and federal policies leave rural Texans in the lurch.
Education — Texas has about 900,000 K-12 students on more than 2,000 rural campuses. They comprise 15.4% of the total K-12 population, the highest percentage of any state, according to the U.S. Department of Education. As we all know, rural schools face challenges of personnel, resources, and transportation, but still graduate their students at a higher rate than urban or suburban schools. However, those graduates are less likely to have access to college-level coursework, take college entrance exams, or enroll in college, often limiting their futures.
Texas’ school funding system has been in disrepair for a generation and is getting worse. Adjusted for inflation, the state now invests as much per pupil as it did in 2014. The feds kick in $2,425 per pupil, and local taxpayers kick in $6,853 — that’s 48% of the total cost paid at the local level. In rural school districts, though, that percentage may be higher because of additional costs. For instance, in 2021-2022, local taxpayers paid 84% of the Marfa ISD’s budget and 63% of the Marathon ISD’s budget. Overall, Texas ranks 42nd in K-12 school funding.
To make matters worse, our state leaders are pushing for passage of a “school choice” bill, which would divert taxpayer dollars to private schools. Sadly, such schools are not an option in 158 of Texas’ 254 counties, according to the Texas Private School Accreditation Commission. Once again, rural Texans are left behind by the actions of the elites in Austin.
Healthcare — Rural Texas has seen a steady decline in access to healthcare. Governing elites in Austin lament the problem but have not done anything about it. In doing so, they deprive rural Texans of needed healthcare and leave billions of healthcare dollars laying on the table.
Texas is one of only 10 states, and the only border state, that has not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. The decision not to participate in the program costs Texans approximately $5 billion every year. Those funds could have been used to save rural hospitals and address the physician, nursing and other health professional shortages. But instead, our federal tax dollars go to California, New York and other expansion states to provide healthcare for their citizens.
One of the leading causes for increased costs in healthcare is the number of patients without health insurance. Unfortunately, Texas continues to lead the nation in both the number and percentage of uninsured patients. Because of this lack of access to health insurance, 1 in 5 Texas adults don’t have a primary care doctor they see regularly and utilize hospital emergency rooms for routine care. As everyone knows, emergency rooms are the most expensive places to receive medical treatment.
Since 2010, Texas leads the nation in hospital closings and currently has 76 rural hospitals that are at risk of closing. We rural Texans know what happens when a hospital closes. The doctors and other healthcare professionals leave town, with cascading effects as families relocate, businesses and schools close, and community life grinds to a halt.
Of the 163 rural hospitals still operating, fewer than 70 deliver babies and 50% must rely on local taxpayers’ property taxes for funding to stay open. To make matters worse, 77 counties have no hospital, and 35 counties have no doctors. And some rural patients must drive more than 75 miles to the nearest hospital.
Agriculture — Agriculture has always been a mainstay of the Texas economy. The 230,662 Texas farms and ranches comprise 14.1% of all the agricultural land in the U.S.A. Our chief crops are cotton, cattle, dairy, poultry, and corn. And we lead the nation in beef and cotton production.
Of course, Texas agriculture faces severe challenges, the largest being prolonged drought conditions. Not only will agriculture not survive without water, but our rural communities will die, too.
One cannot discuss agriculture in Texas without noting the critical role played by farmworkers, many of them undocumented. Texas continues to face a shortage of agriculture workers. The current mass deportation strategy has added to concerns that crops, such as vegetables, produce, fruits, and other perishable items, will go unpicked and rot in the fields. Forty-two percent of agriculture workers are immigrants who lack proper documentation. And in many cases, undocumented workers are paid up to 50% less than other workers. Mass deportations will not only lead to higher labor costs but also higher consumer costs, and many foods will no longer be available on our grocery store shelves.
Texas’ strong agricultural sector also makes it vulnerable to fluctuations in international relations, such as the trade wars over tariffs during the first Trump Administration. You will recall that after countries placed retaliatory tariffs on agricultural goods during President Trump’s first term, the federal government had to pay farmers $32 billion in farm subsidies.
And we could be headed towards an even more expensive taxpayer bailout this time. China, Canada, and Mexico are 50% of our agriculture exports. And if retaliatory tariffs are imposed, markets could be lost for years.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s attack on USAID means food grown by U.S. farmers will not be used; 41% of USAID food aid is grown by U.S. farmers, about $2.1 billion.
Conclusion — Texas is doing well — we’re the best state in the Union. But not all Texans are doing well, and rural Texans suffer more than most. The irony is, it is rural Texans who provide victory margins for our current crop of political leaders — and have done so for at least a generation. Our leaders must pay more attention to the needs of their rural voters – and rural voters must pay more attention to who they’re voting for.
Speaking of health care … Last week, I mentioned the measles outbreak in rural West Texas that had, by then, claimed 90 confirmed cases. The infected count has now risen to 146; perhaps more worrisome, the outbreak has spread to additional counties, moving eastward. And yesterday, a measles-infected child died in a Lubbock hospital, the first measles death in the entire country in a decade. The child had not been vaccinated against the disease.
At an otherwise-embarrassing Cabinet meeting Wednesday, newly-minted HHS Secretary and amateur bear taxidermist Robert Kennedy, Jr., cats such outbreaks were “not unusual.”
But, we’re gonna get a resolution naming the Texas Strip Steak
Texas also works hard to make it so people can't register to vote.